


The Serpent and The Bee

by prettyoddmoon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fiery Snake, Fights, Gen, Horcruxes didn't change Voldemort's appearance, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), Ministry of Magic Fight, Tom and Dumbledore Duel, Young Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25578460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyoddmoon/pseuds/prettyoddmoon
Summary: Having followed Bellatrix into the Atrium, Harry is surprised to meet Voldemort – in all his young glory – and watches breathlessly as a duel kindles between him and his Hogwarts professor, Albus Dumbledore.
Kudos: 15





	The Serpent and The Bee

**Author's Note:**

> hi, all! before you read, please consider that this was written with the headcanon that the creation of horcruxes didn't manipulate voldy's appearance whatsoever in mind. he's still young, handsome, and well-dressed. oh, and also, he smells good. thank you sara for giving me this wonderful idea – i love you and dedicate this work to you.  
> follow me on twitter, please? @ nobleregulus

“Don't waste your breath!” screamed Harry, his eyes screwed up against the pain in his scar, which blossomed to be even more terrible than ever before. “ _He_ can't hear you from here!”

“Can't I, Potter?” a deep, cold voice pierced the air like an icicle.

All of the sudden, Harry's eyes sprung open and he twisted around in a matter of sheer seconds; in the middle of the abandoned, drab hall, stood an intimidatingly tall frame, which he sorrowed to recognise.

A towering youth, face gaunt-like and frozen in a threatening expression; a pair of tourmaline black, overcast eyes contrasted with a sickly pallid complexion. Sleek waves of onyx cascaded down his head and ended right below his ears, a lonesome curl having fled the flock and now resting atop his forehead, but to no bother. There he stood, accoutred in an elegant, 1920s all-black suit with the vest a few shades lighter than the rest of the outfit, a bone-white wand clutched in hand, ready to strike at any time.

_Tom Marvolo Riddle._

Harry had met him once before in all his sinister glory back in his second year, but only as a sole memory launched by an old, – somehow – bewitched diary. If he had come across as a major threat back then, now being in his presence alone caused the hairs on the back of the boy's neck to arise in an instant. It was as though Harry was robbed of the ability to breathe, move, or think, as all thoughts – including Sirius – erased from his mind except for one thing: Voldemort. Right in front of him.

Bellatrix dashed past a dumbstruck Harry. “Master! Oh, Master!” she let out a cry of either glee or utter anguish, dropping to her knees on the tough flooring right before her leader. “The boy– he–”

“Calm yourself, Bella,” the young man barely looked in her direction, brushing his fingers over the pale wood of his wand. His gaze flickered up at Harry at once, enclosing the two of them in tense eye contact that the boy could not bring himself to break for the life of him. “He is not lying... I see the truth looking back at me through his fearful eyes. The prophecy is gone. All our mighty efforts have gone to waste...”

Bellatrix had begun sobbing uncontrollably right around the time he had pronounced the word _gone_ , eliciting a rather disgusted mien from the – what seemed like – adolescent towering over her. Voldemort's head twitched to the side, facing away from the wailing witch kneeling at his feet. He was so close, yet so far away, and while it felt as though Harry would have a significant headstart had he desired to flee, he was simultaneously perfectly able to smell the pungent, rich cologne on the dark wizard.

“There is nothing left to say to you, Potter,” he spoke in an indifferent tone. “This has gone on for too long; I can no longer afford to have you blemishing my schemes. _Avada Kedavra!_ ”

Before Harry could even recall that he was in possession of a wand, a thunder-like jet of green light was already mere feet away from him. Eyes squeezed shut and hoping to reunite with Sirius, the boy inhaled with palpable sharpness, when a headless statue atop the golden fountain had jolted to life and leapt before him, absorbing all of the damage the killing curse was meant to bring upon the boy and consequently bursting into thousands of shimmery pieces. They plummeted to the floor with individual stentorian clinking, catching Voldemort off-guard as an enraged _What?!_ escaped his lips and his dark eyebrows gathered amidst his forehead.

The answer to his outcry wasn't long in coming; right in front of the gates stood none other than Albus Dumbledore himself, wand raised high in the air and wrinkled face scrunched up in a concentrated, yet slightly bewildered way.

Voldemort had noticed quite all right, but didn't feel the need to make conversation with his quondam teacher; instead, he cast yet another green beam, just towards Dumbledore this time. The old wizard was gone with one simple swish of his cloak, the jet that was directed at him crashing into a golden rod of the gate and splitting it in half. At once, the remaining statues came to life and sprung to the rescue – the one of the witch darting at Bellatrix and pinning her to the floor after a generous leap, despite the other's numerous attempts to jinx it. While the goblin and the house-elf circumvented Harry and protectively nudged him backward against a wall, the one-armed centaur had broken into a gallop towards Voldemort. Too late, it turned out, as the latter had vanished and reemerged beside the pool, wand perked up in hand.

“Haven't aged a day, have you, Tom?” Dumbledore remarked as he turned to the skillful youth, shielding off a crackling spell directed at him. His question was within the realm of rhetoric, as he didn't seek it to be answered, knowing well enough it would remain ignored by his counterpart, too. “It was of utmost foolishness to turn up here tonight; the Aurors are on their way.”

Harry watched from the shadows, tightly restrained by the goblin and house-elf duo, his heart threatening to beat its way up his throat and out his mouth. The golden centaur that was once rooted in place cantered between the duellers, serving as an additional shield for Dumbledore and a distraction for Voldemort. Harry noticed a smirk emerge on the young, chiseled face of Voldemort, and let out a gasp, since a spell cast by Dumbledore was warded off with such force, the walls of the Ministry trembled.

“Surely, Dumbledore,” his voice flowed like licorice; dark and tangy. “But by then, I shall be long gone, and you... _shall be dead_.” Having spoken those words, Voldemort shot yet another killing curse Dumbledore's way, initially missing and blasting a floor tile apart. His counterpart wasn't long in coming with a retort – a ray of blinding crimson light – which Voldemort dodged with ease, his movements almost snake-like: quick, meandering, and merely one step ahead. At that moment, Harry caught himself worrying about Dumbledore's safety and success for the first time in his life, as Voldemort was younger, nimbler, brisker, and more reacting. He tensed all of his muscles in an attempt to free himself from the constraint of the statues around him, though to no success, whatsoever.

Right as the thought had crossed his mind, Dumbledore flicked his wand, having drawn a swift circle around his head using it beforehand, which caused the broadest, brightest jet of light yet to emanate from it – Voldemort's face fell, forming an astonished countenance, and he was forced to conjure up a shield of such size he was physically thrust backwards.

Thereupon followed a maneuver Harry couldn't have expected in a myriad of years – the adolescent lowered his wand, his turbid shield dissolving in mid-air, and as the thick beam of light Dumbledore had issued his way tore straight at him, he opened his mouth, swallowing the magenta luminescence whole. Harry's breath got stuck in his lungs, as though each and every bronchial tube had been pinched shut, and he watched, completely stunned, as the young dueller spewed out a gigantic serpent of the most ardent orange he had ever seen. The snake shot upward, sidling and winding in the air, palpably growing more scorching by the second; though several feet away from it, Harry could feel the immense calidity with every fiber of his being. It seared his skin cells, melting down body hairs, and his vision distorted due to the fire. The lit-ablaze vermin released a mighty, flame-filled hiss toward the corner both Dumbledore and Harry found themselves in, and, just as the boy thought he'd get cremated alive and on top of that coated by sizzling liquid gold, the heat had ceased. Dumbledore had summoned a sphere of water – uncannily close in size to Uncle Vernon's car – out of the fountain, which he thereupon sent flying toward the blazing serpent. The two collided; the impeccable orb swallowed the beast whole, and when it had fully disappeared, engulfed Voldemort himself – Dumbledore herded the sphere higher into the air, only a simple dark silhouette visible within its semi-translucent walls. If the hall had been sweltering before, it had now assumed a humid, almost rainforest-like atmosphere, and with those two juxtaposed in opposition, Harry would much rather prefer the latter.

Suddenly, Dumbledore tugged both of his arms down, allowing the sphere to plummet and explode against the dark flooring with a forceful splash; for a short moment, neither the Professor nor Harry was able to see, as the two of them, and, frankly, everything else, was being spattered with water. The moment Harry had come to, Voldemort had already been standing there, in clear view, chic suit as well as hair perfectly dry and unblemished, as though he hadn't spent the entirety of the previous minute in a bubble made of water. His facial expression prompted that he was beside himself with fury, an ominous fire burning within his irises, and in the next second, he was already sending an atrous jet towards Dumbledore, who acted quickly by casting an electric blue one in return, – accidentally striking the golden centaur which had leapt in front of Voldemort's beam for protection – thus arranging a vociferous collision of the two. Sparks issued out of the touchpoint of the rays, sizzling and crackling as they competed, struggling to subdue one another.

“Not meaning to kill me, are you, Dumbledore? Or have your duelling skills just rusted this much?” the youth raised his voice as to surpass the volume of the crepitating. An arrogant smirk spread across his face in full trust in his own victory, and Harry's insides stirred with rage. He was forced to sit there and watch, possibly even watch Dumbledore die, and there was nothing at all he could do to take action; neither could he move, nor scream, nor warn, nor interfere, nor join the duel. The only helping hand his professor could be lent – the golden centaur – now rigidly lay in the distance. In addition, witnessing Voldemort approach the matter with that reckless smugness of his, his full confidence and surety, was agonizing – all he wanted was to be able to draw his wand and strike the adolescent with a purgatorial _Crucio!_ , and this time, he would mean it; mean it with the entirety of his heart, sanity and being. _You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain – to enjoy it – righteous anger won't hurt me for long!_ , Bellatrix' words echoed back and forth within his skull like a ball being tossed around amongst children.

“Taking your life would not satisfy me nearly as much as taking mine would satisfy you, Tom,” Dumbledore put forth with, seemingly, all the calmness in the world. “Besides, there are many more gruesome ways of destroying a wizard, and you, of all people, should be aware.” Harry gaped at how although the duellers were in the middle of a combat, they made coffeeshop-style conversation, as though the matter were no greater than the availability of sugar and cream.

“ _No!_ ” bellowed Voldemort, veins prominently popping on his forehead due to the exertion put into the battle. “There is nothing in this world worse than death, Dumbledore! _Nothing!_ Nothing at all!” His previously sleek hair now tousled and suit disheveled, he certainly had a less intimidating effect, but something about the drained face, eerily dark eyes, and an expression of utter malice pinched at every square millimeter of Harry's skin.

Dumbledore merely chortled at his counterpart's words, taking a few careful steps towards him. “As compelling and powerful as you might seem, the failure to understand that there are things lightyears worse than death remains your greatest, most vulnerable weakness,” he spoke, not halting. Harry observed Voldemort; his dark eyebrows knit atop his forehead, wrinkling the smooth, ageless skin above, reflecting pure fury. It was almost satirical how the professor could get under the skin of, like many had picked up the habit to say, Greatest Dark Wizard of All Time, with such ease. The youth's nostrils flared wider with every breath he took, and, after a few seconds, he yanked his armed hand down with such strength the two competing jets of light burst apart, for one backfiring on Dumbledore – the man was thrust backwards, landing mere feet away from Harry, tugging a sharp yelp out of the boy's mouth as a reaction. In addition, the entire Ministry grounds shuddered vigorously; the thudding of the ground, rattling of the elevators in their shafts, and clanking of the gates impregnated the tense air. There was an eruption of blinding white light that filled every nook and cranny of the hall for a split-second, and once all of it had cleared, Harry was in dismay to find Voldemort standing closer than ever, right at the feet of Dumbledore's still lying self. A gaze of wrath etched in his hauntingly handsome face, he breathed through his mouth with an agitated unsteadiness. By the time Harry had even switched to look where his wand was, he had already taken to it to disarm a stunned Dumbledore, with the latter's wand landing someplace with a suggestive clanking. Towering over him with his neck tilted at an almost impossible, serpent-like angle, the adolescent shot the boy to the professor's left a glance that could very well have burned a hole into him had Voldemort not looked away a bat of an eye later.

Sinister eyes now fixed on his former teacher, it almost seemed as though they released a black-and-emerald smoke that swathed him, engulfing Dumbledore in the figurative abyss. A spectral, unearthly smirk spread across Voldemort's face; Harry's breath caught in his lungs, probably blocked out from the windpipe by the heart that was thumping against his chest so viciously it could've been denting his ribs without difficulty. For a brief moment, it was silent, almost as though Tom Riddle had indulged in contemplation. Bellatrix whimpered beneath the constraints of the witch statue somewhere in the background, and once her sounds of despair had faded into a deranged chortle, Harry knew.

Voldemort's voice swelled in the gloom with a rather threatening rasp, “It's over, Dumbledore. It's done.” The hall flashed with neon green light – Harry could see it even through his closed eyelids – and a heart-wrenching sound as though lightning had struck an exceptionally mighty tree tore through the silence.

“ _No more frolic._ ”


End file.
